The challenged the FBI in court to protect the privacy and rights of their users, so you they can at least state they will challenge any such requests to the fullest extent of the law.

They could also commit to not enter markets where local law isn't compatible with human rights and "freedom of information and expression". Although the most relevant such country is China and no way are they leaving that market and in addition their whole supply chain is massively dependent on China.

Apple essentially failed to patch a current plaintext backdoor to iMessage end to end encryption (due to the fact that device backups, on by default, containing complete plaintext message history are NOT end to end encrypted and are uploaded to Apple with Apple keys each night) because they didn’t want to cross the FBI.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

https://sneak.berlin/20200604/if-zoom-is-wrong-so-is-apple/

Challenging the FBI in court is not in violation of US laws.

Doesn't Google make phones in china without being otherwise active there?

They're starting to move Pixel production to Vietnam. It's also less of a freedom of information and expression issue when the Play Store doesn't operate in China like the App Store does.

If you’re not going to stand for human rights, at least don’t claim that you are.

In other words, “respect national law while seeking to respect the principles of internationally recognised human rights”.

Open phrasing allows creativity with options without revealing any specific plans to CCP.

"We refuse to work with countries that engage in ongoing human rights abuses."

Which countries are those? And who decides which go on the list?

I doesn't matter much as long as there is a list. Apple can even publish it's own list, then everybody can debate if this is a good list or bad list. Currently there is no list - no discussion.

Apple? Because this is a statement about their moral principles.

There's no consensus among scholars about how many human rights exist, how to realize them, and how to prioritize them.

For example, is healthcare a right? Is food a right? Is education a right? Is there a "right to development"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... seems like a good lowest bar to hit, incidentally the policy being discussed in this thread was based on it

"There is no consensus among scholars, therefore human rights don't exist."

It is possible (and in fact, expected) of companies that take these kinds of pledges to have a baseline set of human rights that most people (or at least most people on Apple's board) will agree on, even if there is ambiguity around the edges.

The alternative is saying, "we'll stand for this thing that we refuse to define in even vague terms, and as a result it will be impossible for anyone to evaluate whether or not we're succeeding, or even making progress."

If Apple can't determine even in broad terms what is and isn't a rights violation, then their declaration is meaningless. They don't need to decide for everyone, and not everyone needs to agree with them -- it's fine for other people and companies to come up with their own criteria. But Apple has to at least some internal idea of what they mean when they say they stand for something, otherwise it will be impossible for them to build real policies around the declaration.

And some of this honestly isn't that controversial among scholars. As an analogy, if I commit to avoiding stocking unhealthy products in my store, I don't need to know for certain whether or not coffee is healthy in order to say Cadbury Eggs are not -- pretty much everyone agrees on that. In the same way, we don't really need to debate whether or not healthcare is a human right to understand that forced abortions, forced monitoring and 'reeducation', and concentration camps for Uighurs are violations of their human rights.

Couple of honest questions to you (or anyone else reading this who thinks along the same lines).

Firstly, are you saying anyone who happened to be born in China is complicit in e.g. the crimes committed against Uighur population and thus doesn't deserve to be able to legally buy an Apple phone in their country?

Secondly, if Apple exits a non-free country, do you expect that to improve the situation? Make the country freer?

In China this would leave the population to local tech, which is pretty much owned by CCP and subject to its every whim—as opposed to Apple’s cooperating to the degree required to not break the law.

What's the benefit to be had here?

>Firstly, are you saying anyone who happened to be born in China is complicit in e.g. the crimes committed against Uighur population and thus doesn't deserve to be able to legally buy an Apple phone in their country?

I am not saying everyone in China is complicit in the Chinese government's human rights abuses. Purchasing a specific product from a specific company is not a right.

>Secondly, if Apple exits a non-free country, do you expect that to improve the situation? Make the country freer?

>In China this would leave the population to local tech, which is pretty much owned by CCP and subject to its every whim—as opposed to Apple’s cooperating to the degree required to not break the law.

I don't expect it to improve the situation, nor do I believe it's Apple's job to improve China. Apple's job is to have consistent beliefs about human rights if they're going to pretend to care about them.

>What's the benefit to be had here?

The benefit is Apple puts their money where their mouth is. Saying they care about human rights and then cooperating with a serial abuser renders their policy irrelevant.

Apple doesn't help prop up an authoritarian regime? CCP gonna CCP, but at least Apple's hands are clean. It's not any individual Chinese citizen's fault, but they unfortunately have to deal with the consequences of an illiberal, ruthless regime.

So your idea is that the presence of Apple helps (props up) CCP, the absence would hurt CCP? Any details as to how?

My belief is it's the opposite and I've outlined why I think Apple’s withdrawal would strengthen the regime in my comment above.

If the CCP believed that Apple's absence would strengthen the regime, then they would get rid of Apple. Clearly they think it's in their best interest to have Apple around. You can disagree with them, but I think the CCP is much better positioned to know what's in their interest than we are.

You are granting CCP omniscience, power and integrity they don't have.

Apple probably came to China to expand their market, had enough lawyers to navigate the muddy bureaucracy, CCP could block them regardless but decided to let them open shops and profit from taxes for now. Many Chinese would buy Apple products overseas in HK or Taiwan anyway; CCP is powerless to stop it and would not mind a share of the sales.

CCP may be blind to Western values brought in by Apple, or discount their influence, or tolerate them for now because it is economically lucrative.

"We refuse to put ourselves in a position where we can be compelled to violate human rights." - such as the position of arbiter of what may run on your phone.

And not encrypting iCloud backups

I mean if they want to make these kinds of statements then yeah, kinda. Because following national laws even when you disagree with them is the default. I don't fault anyone for taking this position since I don't think anyone is ever obligated to self-sacrifice. But civil disobedience is the act of protest and something deserving of praise.

Unless their position is "all countries equally violate human rights", they should minimize their footprint in countries with egregious human rights violations. They get to decide which countries go onto that list. Maybe they think China has an excellent record, or is no worse than others. If so, let them state that.

They're not "supposed" to say anything. Every normal business claims to follow local laws and we don't praise them for it.

What are we supposed to say? They can claim to stand up for human rights and freedom of information and expression while kowtowing to China?

Yes.

It bad to violate human rights to comply with local laws of a country.

But it's even worse to do that and claim that you are upholding the human rights.

What they should do is either: be honest and say that they comply with local laws of a country even if they think they violate human rights; or don't violate human rights.

If you live in China and care about privacy, get an iPhone. The local offerings (Huawei, etc) are compromised, and Google's stuff is blocked.

Apple's in a tough spot, but the iPhone is one of a few remaining viable choices that isn't dominated by the PRC and why roll Apple for that? What's the plan if Apple pulls out?